


Guarding the Ghosts

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 00:24:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18457700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "The idea is that ghosts exist on a separate plane from everyone else (one separate from both the guardians and beings like them and mortals). Jack, being a dead person, but having been brought into a different kind of life, can see other dead people despite not really sharing in their reality. (But since he didn’t really know he was dead until the events of the movie, couldn’t explain this.)Go wild with this prompt, shenanigans, angst, anything goes."Jack can see ghosts, but they still can’t see him. Jack does what he can for them, though, after watching their reality for a while.





	Guarding the Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 4/8/2015.

Jack tried not to be frustrated with them. Their situation wasn’t their fault, and they didn’t share even the small advantages he possessed.  
  
But he still felt they should have shared something.  
  
The first time he had seen someone else get walked through, he had instantly recognized the expression of fear and confusion. Not wishing for that person to suffer as he had, he flew over to them at once, reaching out for their hand to offer the comfort of a touch, the comfort of the knowledge that  _someone_ could still see them.  
  
His hand had gone through theirs. It didn’t feel like being walked through–it didn’t feel like much of anything. They didn’t seem to feel anything either. And they still didn’t see him.  
  
That seemed impossible, nonsensical, that even someone who shared his plight wouldn’t see him, and Jack remembered screaming in frustration, something he hadn’t done for months.  
  
They didn’t notice the scream either, but, calmer now, Jack was able to notice something else. They were crying. And not just crying. Their chest heaved with great, wracking sobs. And Jack couldn’t hear them.  
  
He put his hand over his mouth and backed away, half-horrified, half wanting to scream in frustration again. Now that he was really looking at them, he could tell who they were. He had seen them walking through the village just a little while ago–two weeks, a month.   
  
And now? Now, they must be a ghost. That’s why they weren’t the same as Jack. That was why they were crying. They had died, and now they were cut off from the life they had just lived. They were crying for their past.   
  
And though Jack longed for a past, at that moment, he wouldn’t trade his state with a ghost’s for anything.  
  
He knew he had been right about them being a ghost when he saw them linger around their house. They didn’t seem interested in seeing what they could do in their new state, nor did they seem to want to get away from people and go where they wouldn’t be walked through, either. And eventually, they disappeared.  
  
Jack looked for ghosts on purpose, after that. There were always some, if he watched closely. And all of them waiting for something, even if they couldn’t tell him what that was.  
  
Some of them lingered for years. None of them ever interacted with anyone or anything.   
  
At first Jack left them to it. He was invisible to them, they were invisible and silent to everyone. All his sightings only reminded him of crushed hopes.   
  
But thinking of hopes, Jack had to remember that his isolation was not unbreakable. Even his run-ins with the Easter Bunny–the ghosts had nothing like that. They had nothing like the wind and the snow, where they could see their will have an effect on the world.  
  
And so Jack tried, and tried over and over again, to let go of his frustration with the ghosts, though they could share nothing when it seemed they should.   
  
He learned to read lips. He listened to the conversations of mourners more closely. He grew practiced with finding the thing undone. He learned how a few nudges of wind could help that undone thing get done sooner. The places Jack haunted were more and more often haunted only by him.  
  
And sometimes, when he looked around a village freed of any silent weepers, he was able to forget that he was supposed to do anything else. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tags from Tumblr:
> 
> #poor little psychopomp


End file.
